DM_Steel's Downtime Days
I developed this system to give me a concrete formula for awarding days of downtime to my players. I didn't like the narrative flow that most games have of characters going from levels 1-20 in a few months of in-game time.
This document will cover that formula, how often to use it, and how the PCs actially spend those downtime days.
Formula
To start, for most of my homebrew content, I break the character levels down based on proficiency bonus. So, levels 1-4, 5-8, 9-12, 13-16, and 17-20. Each tier gets a different die size, then, we roll that die per average character level:
| Average Level | Die | Days Awarded / Average Roll |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | d4 | 1d4 / 2.5 days |
| 2 | d4 | 2d4 / 5 days |
| 3 | d4 | 3d4 / 7.5 days |
| 4 | d4 | 4d4 / 10 days |
| 5 | d6 | 5d6 / 17.5 days |
| 6 | d6 | 6d6 / 21 days |
| 7 | d6 | 7d6 / 24.5 days |
| 8 | d6 | 8d6 / 28 days |
| 9 | d8 | 9d8 / 40.5 days |
| 10 | d8 | 10d8 / 45 days |
| 11 | d8 | 11d8 / 49.5 days |
| 12 | d8 | 12d8 / 54 days |
| 13 | d10 | 13d10 / 71.5 days |
| 14 | d10 | 14d10 / 77 days |
| 15 | d10 | 15d10 / 82.5 days |
| 16 | d10 | 16d10 / 88 days |
| 17 | d12 | 17d12 / 110.5 days |
| 18 | d12 | 18d12 / 117 days |
| 19 | d12 | 19d12 / 123.5 days |
| 20 | d12 | 20d12 / 130 days |
If you rolled once for downtime each level, the PCs would get around 1,105 days over their careers, which is just over 3 years of in-game time (not counting days spent during each session adventuring.)
Example: If you have 4 PCs, levels 3, 4, 6, and 9. Their average PC level is 5.5, so round down to 5. So when you roll for downtime days, you'd roll 5d6, granting them an average of 17 or 18 days.
When to Roll
I roll between most adventures when the PCs return to their home base. I normally ask the Players if they want me to roll, so that I'm not forcing downtime gaps when they have pressing issues they want to go deal with. If they just finished an adventure and feel like there is another one that is pressing for time, then they are welcome to skip the downtime roll and go tackle the next adventure.
If this happens too often, I'll gently remind them that adventuring is stressful work and if their PCs don't get some downtime, they are likely to start suffering stress related problems.
PCs are People Too
"Think about how stressed you get when you don't get time off from work or school. Now think about how much more stressful it would be if your life was in constant danger."
What to do with Downtime
Personally, I love the Downtime rules presented in Xanathar's Guide to Everything, they are an expanded version of the rules available in the Dungeon Master's Guide. That said, I do tweak them a bit, and here is a link to another document I wrote of some expanded/revised Downtime activities: DM_Steel's Downtime Expanded.
I also use the Adventure's League retroactive spending. It's not important to track exactly what the PCs were doing their downtime as they get it. Mostly, the players just want to bank that time and spend it later, or they only want to spend part of it at a time. I leave the downtime ambiguous until the PC is actually using it.
Example: Sally the Rogue decides that she wants a little extra money to buy a new horse, so she notes that she can use take the Crime downtime activity and maybe make some extra cash.
Sally: "I need some more gold to buy that horse, so can I see if Sally made any money off a crime during her downtime? Maybe trying to rob a prosperous merchant?"
DM: "Sure, mark off 1 week of downtime and lets make some rolls."
Rolling for the Crime downtime activity ensues.
DM: "You got two successes, which is a partial success, so you earned 50 gp from that heist."
OR...
DM: "You got no successes, so you were caught and must pay a fine of 100 gp and spend 4 weeks in jail. So mark off 4 more weeks of downtime."
Sally: "Isn't there anything I can do?"
DM: "We can make a note of this time you were caught and maybe we can do a flashback session to see if anything more interesting happened. For now, as far as anyone knows, you were caught and you've paid your debt to society."